“My face is my fortune, sir,” she said.
— Nursery Rhyme
“So that’s it? That’s all? You’re going to just let it go? Forget about it?”
Archie, now safely back in his room, even safer in his bed, looked at Grady. “Explain it to her, sonny.”
Grady watched as Annie paced, her arms flapping now and then, her cheeks flushed, seemingly caught somewhere between frustration and... well, actually, she was pretty much just a picture of frustration. Poor baby.
“Annie, look,” Grady said. “Archie doesn’t want anyone to know his own kids tried to screw him.”
“Did screw him!” Annie all but shouted. “Five million dollars is a whole lot of screwing!”
“Archie?” Grady prompted.
“Five million dollars is nothing,” Archie told her. “I gave the three of them ten million apiece when they each turned twenty-five, and that never made a dent. I considered it cheap, seeing as how it kept them out of my house and off my back for a while.”
Annie held up her hands, to stop Archie before he could say anything else. “Wait a minute. You gave them each ten million dollars? Grady,” she said, turning to face him, “I thought you said Maisie’s background checks showed that none of them had much money, that they were all dependent on Archie?”
“You’re right, I did. Archie, you have an answer to that one?”
“Sure do.” Archie held up his hands, began ticking off on his fingers. “A.W. and Mitzi tried to break away, form their own rival company, hoping to ruin me with my own money. Mitzi had this great idea that getting top clothing designers to draw up fancy toilet paper would make them rich. Stupid fools. People want soft on their asses, and cheap. Soft on their asses comes second. Hell, it’s not like toilet paper is a lifetime commitment. Just use it and get rid of it. Know what my biggest seller is, boy, and always has been? The cheap stuff. And the cheap stuff makes me the most money. They were crawling back in three years, not just broke but in debt to their eyeballs.”
“And Junior?” Annie asked, intrigued in spite of herself.
“He spread his around a little more. Up his nose, down his throat, a full three mil on a gold mine in Ghana or some damn place, another five on some big fans they were going to lower into the Atlantic Ocean off Florida, to divert the Gulf Stream so New Jersey would be warmer, if you can believe that one. His ex-wives got the rest.”
“Leaving Muriel,” Grady said. “She just doesn’t seem the type to blow ten million dollars.”
“She didn’t. Her husband did.”
“Her husband? We found no record of a marriage.”
Dickens placed a silver tray holding a teapot and some china cups on a low table before the fireplace. “Mr. Peevers had all the records of the marriage destroyed, sir. Miss Peevers was understandably upset to learn that she had married a fortune hunter.”
“I got that money back, too,” Archie said, cackling. “Most of it anyway. Had the son of a bitch chased all the way to Australia before we caught up with him. Not that I ever told her. She’d just have given it to somebody else. Muriel’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, you know.”
“But you love her,” Annie said quietly, walking toward the bed. “That’s it, isn’t it? A.W.’s a spineless idiot, Junior’s a waste, and Muriel is pitiful. But they’re your children and you love them. That’s why you won’t do anything, won’t turn them in to the police. You’re just making them move out of the house, leave the company.”
Archie sat forward, waved for Annie to step aside, so he could look at Grady. “She doesn’t get it, does she? She’s looking for some way to dress this up, make it pretty and sentimental and all that bullshit.” He looked at Annie. “No, girlie-girl, I didn’t turn them in because I can’t stand them, because they’re the most pitiful bunch of losers anyone could imagine. When I die they’ll all be broke, and I couldn’t be more tickled about that. I’m old, I’m mean, and I’m damn well going to die happy!”
“See, Annie,” Grady said, getting out of his chair, “it’s as simple as I thought it was, and explains why I was brought here in the first place. He wanted everything kept quiet. Archie just doesn’t want anyone to know that his miserable, pitiful bunch of losers scammed him out of five million or, once the arrow came through the window, that one of them actually tried to kill him. Even if Daisy said they’d only wanted to scare him to death, not actually shoot him.”
Annie shrugged. “She is an archery expert. When she says she hits what she aims at, I believe her. I hit what I aim at. But what if she’d missed, didn’t account for wind or loft, or something, and had really hit Archie? What if I hadn’t swerved at the last moment, and Junior had hit me that day on the road? They can say they were only trying to scare Archie, scare me, but that’s because we’re still alive. I think they should both go to jail for attempted murder.”
“You know what it is, son, don’t you?” Archie said, leaning back against the pillows once more. “She’s just still pissed that Junior not only messed up her room, but that he tried on her lipstick while he was at it.”
Annie shivered in revulsion. “I remember looking at him that night, with that lipstick smeared on his mouth, and thinking, wow, Killer Red. It just took me this long to realize I’d recognized it because it was my lipstick. That is so sick!”
“I have videos of him prancing around in Daisy’s undies, if you want to see them,” Archie piped up helpfully.
“Thank you, no,” Annie said, staggering to a chair. “All I want to do now is pack my bags, pick up my check, and get the hell out of here.”
“Sorry, babe,” Grady said, walking over to stand behind her, rub her shoulders. Now came the part he’d dreaded. He knew some of it, but not all of it. He needed to know all of it. “I’m afraid we still have the third act to get through. Or did you forget that you were going to tell me who you really are?”
Annie bent her head, so that he had better access to rub at her tense muscles. “Not now, Grady. Haven’t you had enough for one day?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Dickens? If you’d go downstairs and bring the good doctor up, please? He’s waiting in the drawing room at my request. We’ll start with the two of you, and leave Annie here for last.” As Dickens went to the door, obediently if reluctantly, Grady leaned down, kissed Annie’s head. “I’m sorry. I already know most of it, Slugger. We’ll get through this together, and as quickly as possible. But it has to be done.”
She turned in the chair, looked up at him. “You know? How would you know?”
Grady looked over at the bed, to see that Archie was nodding off. Going downstairs had taken a lot out of the man. “Okay,” Grady said, moving to sit down in the chair facing Annie’s, “I’ll start by apologizing. You made me promise to stop looking, and I really meant that promise. Except last night, as it got later and later, and I got more punch drunk on my success with finding Daisy—well, I sort of forgot my promise.”
Annie bit on her knuckle. “Go on.”
Grady stabbed his fingers through his hair, took a breath. “I was sitting at the computer, with Maisie passed out on the bed behind me, thinking how I had fooled around with Goodenough, and come up with Best. We’d already played with your name a little, Annie, but not very much. And when I accused you of using Annie Kendall as an alias, you just shot back that your name was so Annie. You never mentioned Kendall. I decided that maybe Kendall isn’t your real last name, that all I really had to go on was Annie. So I started typing in some alternatives.”
“How... how inventive of you,” Annie said, unable to look at him.
“Yeah, well, like I said. It was late, I was tired, but I really felt I was on a roll. I figured, hey, if it worked once, maybe it would work again. So I typed in Annie Peevers. Nothing. Annie Dickens. Nada. Then I typed in Annie Sandborn. Bingo!”
Annie kept her head down, even as she reached up and wiped away tears with the backs of her hands. “You’re very good, Grady. Archie was lucky to find you.”
Grady reached across the small space dividing them, put his hand on Annie’s knee. “I’m not that good, Annie. I still don’t know why, or how, or what you and Sandborn hoped to gain. And you know what? I don’t care. That’s what I need to say to you before Sandborn comes up here. I love you, and I don’t care about the rest of it.”
“I do,” Annie said quietly. “I thought I knew why I’d come here, why Poppy asked me to come here. But now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
“Not anything, Annie? How about me?”
Finally, she raised her head, her wonderful eyes awash in tears. “I’d like to believe in happy endings.”
Grady took both her hands in his, squeezed them. “Then let’s go for it, okay? You just sit here and let me talk to Dickens and Sandborn, then jump in when you think the time is right.”
Annie nodded, biting her bottom lip. She knew she couldn’t possibly talk, not without bursting into tears.
The door opened, and Dickens and Dr. Sandborn entered the room. Grady was already on his feet, going halfway to meet them, keeping himself between Annie and Sandborn. “Archie?” he called out, and the old man snorted, said, “Huh?” and slowly roused. “What now?”
“What happens now, Archie,” Grady said, eager to get this first part behind him, “is that maybe you’re not paranoid. Sometimes, as your family has proved, as I’m about to prove now, the whole world is out to get you. For starters, you might be interested to know that your devoted butler and your dedicated doctor have been systematically ripping you off for, oh, ten or twenty years. Do I have that time frame right, boys?”
An unseen hand seemed to shove a poker straight up Dicken’s backside. “Sir! You promised!”
“Yeah, well, guess what? I lied,” Grady told him. “Must be the company I’ve been keeping lately. Or maybe it’s just something in the air around this place. Makes lying easy.”
“Give it up, Charles,” Sandborn said, reaching into his medical bag and taking out his silver flask. “Besides, it’s not you he’s after, but me. Isn’t that right, Mr. Sullivan? Although I really do wish you’d not be so smug about it.”
Annie sank lower in her chair. This was all news to her, very bad news. It had never occurred to her that Poppy could have been in cahoots with Dickens’s scheme.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Archie said, hopping out of bed, so that everyone could see he was still dressed in his cummerbund and tuxedo slacks. “You talking about the jewels, the paintings, all that crap? Because, if you are, I already know about that. I’ve known about it for years.”
“Sir?” Dickens squeaked, looking like a man who has just seen the governor come running down the hallway thirty seconds before the executioner was set to pull the switch. “Am I to believe you condone my inexcusable actions?”
“Condone them? Hell, Dickens, I applaud them! Leave money to you in my will, or let you steal what you needed after forty years of faithful service—what difference does it make? Besides, why do you think I left this house and everything in it to those damn kids of mine? But you could work a little faster, you know. That Rembrandt in the drawing room will bring in at least a million, which would keep the leeches in booze and women and fortune hunters for at least a month.”
Grady rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to ward off what could end up being a real bitch of a headache. “Archie, you are so completely and thoroughly despicable that I can only admire you, twisted as that makes me feel. And you knew Sandborn here was in on it?”
“Sandy? Well, of course. I’ve been his only patient for close on twenty years now, and he spends like a drunken sailor, always did. Mostly because he’s a drunk himself. Who better to rip off but your oldest and dearest friend? I’ve known for years.”
“I’m outta here,” Annie said, slowly rising to her feet. “I am really, really out of here. I can’t listen to any more of this.”
Sandborn reached out toward her, to take her arm, but she put up her arms, backed away from him as if he were a hot stove. “No! Don’t touch me. Don’t come anywhere near me, not ever again. I should have known you were lying. You never did anything for me, or my mother. Just for yourself. Always for yourself!”
Grady put his hand on her shoulder and she instinctively turned into his arms, burying her head against his chest. “I didn’t tell you because he said he wanted to be the one who picked the time. After I was here for a while, after I got to know everyone. When he thought Archie was ready. Oh, why didn’t he just leave me alone? How could he believe that knowing I’m a part of this would be good for me?”
“Dickens, go down the hall and find Maisie, would you?” Grady asked, holding Annie close, letting her cry. “Hurry.”
“Annie, I did do it for you,” Sandborn said, daring to take a step toward her, backing away quickly when he saw the hard glint in Grady’s eyes.
All three men remained quiet while Annie cried.
Maisie rushed in, Dickens still trying to explain the little he knew, and quickly took charge of Annie, holding on to her as she led her out of the room. “I’ve got you now, honey,” she told her, looking back at Grady. “Come on, we’ll go have a good cry together, and then do our nails. That’ll cheer you right up. Men are such beasts, aren’t they?”
Grady waited until the door had closed, then turned to look at Sandborn. “Anytime you’re ready, Doctor.”
“Yes, all right. Let’s get this over with.” Sandborn unscrewed the top of his flask, took a long swallow, shivering as the heat slammed into his throat. “Archie,” he said, looking at his friend, his patient, “do you have any idea how long I’ve hated your guts?”
Archie hustled back to his bed, his island of safety, and pulled the covers up to his chin. “Sandy? What are you talking about? Why would you hate me? I thought we were friends.”
Grady winced, then looked at his, God help him, temporary employer. “Archie, the man’s been stealing from you, among other things. We’ll talk about the vitamin shots he’s been giving you—and been taking himself— and the fact that he withheld treatment for your agoraphobia for years until some other time. Still, even without that, how in hell can you think you two were friends?”
“Because I’m the only friend he’s got,” Sandborn said, plunking his huge frame down in the chair Annie had vacated, his strong legs flung out in front of him. “His kids hate him, his workers hate him. Hell, he couldn’t even get a dog to love him. Could you, Archie? Remember Bonzo? Little terrier? That dog hated your guts. I’ve always been all you had, Archie, and then you betrayed even me, didn’t you?”
The covers moved higher, so that Archie’s words were near mumbles. “Sandy. What are you talking about? I never hurt you.”
“Now why doesn’t that sound convincing?” Grady asked, looking from one man to the other. “Dickens? Do you have any idea?”
“Yes, sir, I think I might, now,” Dickens said, lifting his chin. “But, as I’ll be packing, sir, I really don’t have time to share that information with you. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in Tahiti.”
“Since Archie isn’t in the mood to press charges, I suppose you can leave. Happy beachcombing,” Grady called after him, “but I’d rethink a thong if that’s what you had in mind.” Then he looked at Archie, who seemed near tears. “They’re running like grunion in the moonlight, aren’t they, Archie? One by one, out the door, until all that’s left is Annie and your old pal here, Sandy. Sandy? Don’t you want to get the rest of it off your chest? Tell Archie about Annie?”
“Yes, Poppy, tell Archie about Annie.”
All three men looked toward the door, and at Annie, who had come back into the room, her face pale, her hands clenched in fists, her voice unsteady, but hard. Behind her, Maisie was lifting her hands and shaking her head, as if to say, “Hey, I tried to keep her away, but what can you do?”
“No,” Annie continued, walking farther into the room, avoiding Grady’s eyes. “Let me tell him. Let me tell him that about twenty-six years ago he seduced my mother. My then-twenty-year-old mother. Let me tell him how she ran away in disgrace when she found out she was pregnant and her married lover had already moved on to his next conquest—and that her own father had demanded she have an abortion. Let me tell him how she tried to keep me, but just couldn’t seem to do it right, so she finally pinned the name Annie Kendall Sandborn to my coat, and left me outside a supermarket in Georgia. Kendall was her mother’s maiden name—my grandmother’s maiden name—but I didn’t learn that for a lot of years. A lot of very long years.”
Grady reached out to her, but she shook her head, backed away, kept pacing. “Then, Poppy—when he found me he wanted me to call him Poppy. Isn’t that just... lovely? Anyway, Archie, Poppy found me in Philadelphia, after I’d left Georgia, traveled north, stayed in Baltimore for a while, then chased myself as far as Pennsylvania. Chased the name Sandborn as far as Pennsylvania. Because that’s all I had, until Poppy showed up.”
“I explained that, Annie. I—I was upset. Angry. Sheila had always been wild, unmanageable. When she told me she was pregnant, I just reacted.” Sandborn shook his head, sighed. “I just reacted. I threw her out. And then I couldn’t find her.”
“I did,” Annie told him. “I found her, five years ago, in a cemetery just outside Atlanta. She died of an overdose a year after abandoning me. I found her because I looked. When did you start looking?”
“Sullivan—psst! Sullivan!”
Grady walked over to the bed.
“What’s she saying? Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”
“If you think she’s saying she’s your child, then yes, she’s saying what you think she’s saying. Now shut up.”
“But I like her, Sullivan,” Archie whispered. “I mean, this one has promise.”
Sandborn seemed to shrink in his chair. “So many lost years. I’d lost my wife—your grandmother—a year before Sheila ran away, and I’d already been drinking. Dipping into my medical bag when it all got too much.” He looked at his granddaughter. “I was so mad, so hurt. I... I got lost, Annie. I got lost for a lot of years. I didn’t want to find you, because you were part of him, a Peevers. And Sheila had disappeared. Even when I found out that she’d died, I still didn’t want anything to do with you, didn’t want to find you. I didn’t even know if you were a boy or a girl, and I didn’t care. I’ll be honest about that, I was honest with you about that when we finally met. I just wanted Archie to live as long as I could make him live, and suffer every day for what he’d done.”
Archie grabbed on to Grady’s arm. “She came after me. Sheila came after me, I swear it. It was just a little fun. Nothing was supposed to happen. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I swear it, Sullivan, I swear it! Keep him away from me, you hear? I’m paying you, remember. You’re here to protect me.”
“Don’t count on it, Arch,” Grady said, walking over to stand beside Annie, put his arm around her shoulder. “Heard enough yet, Slugger? Because I think I know the rest. Sandborn found you—who knows how long ago, or how long it was until he decided to finally meet you. Then, finally, he told you who you were, and then told you Archie was looking for someone to impersonate his long-lost heir. Hell, once Sandborn found you, it was he who suggested the idea to Archie. Remember when he let that slip?”
Annie leaned into Grady for support. “I only met him three months ago, although I think he’s known about me for years. He said I could come here, get to know my family without them knowing I was family. That appealed to me, because I really wasn’t sure I wanted to find any more family out there. I’d found my mother, and she was dead. But getting to know my family did make sense, especially as I could walk away again if I didn’t like them, and nobody would ever know.”
She laughed, but the laughter was hollow. “Well, I met them, didn’t I? You know, I think I was better off believing myself to be alone in the world. What a horrible, horrible bunch! They could be on posters for Dysfunctional Families.”
“Be nice, Annie,” Grady whispered. “You’ll regret kicking them, even these two, while they’re down. And, believe me, they’re down. Down, and pretty well out.” She looked up at him, tried to smile. “I’m not an angel, either, Grady. I wanted the fifty thousand dollars, too. I won’t deny that, won’t lie to you about that. I used some to buy the car, and some clothes—because I thought I’d feel more like I fit in if I looked like I fit in. Do you understand that? But I had plans for the rest of it. I just didn’t know Poppy had plans for a lot more than fifty thousand dollars.” She looked over at Sandborn. “Didn’t you, Poppy?”
“You should have it all!” Sandborn said, his face red with exertion, and maybe some small bit of shame. “You and me, we should have it all.”
“I wouldn’t have taken it if it had been offered,” Annie said, and Grady could feel her spine stiffen. “You knew what I wanted to do with the money, how I’d planned to spend it. But you didn’t care. You never cared. You just wanted your revenge, and saw me as a way to get it.”
“Let me guess here, Annie,” Grady said, squeezing her waist, trying to keep her close because he could feel her muscles bunching, as if she was about to run, not that he could blame her. “I know now that you work on the transplant coordinating team for the Kidney Foundation in Philadelphia. The money was going to go there, wasn’t it?”
Annie nodded, unable to say anything else, and Grady thought he could actually feel his heart swelling in his chest. God, how he loved this woman.
“You want to get out of here?” he asked after a moment, as Archie hid under the covers and Sandborn sat in a chair, his head in his hands. Two old men. Two mean, unfulfilled, bitter old men who both knew they had just lost something very, very precious.
She nodded again.
“Me, too. Let’s go. We’ll leave the two of them here to talk this out, or kill each other, or whatever the hell they want to do. Although they’ll probably kiss and make up. They’re all the other one has now, aren’t they?”
* * *
“I should have told you,” Annie said, once they were in his room and Maisie had announced that she had packed everyone’s suitcases so they could make their getaway to Philadelphia before anything else happened.
“You could have,” Grady agreed, touching her cheek. “Except you and Poppy had a deal. It was his idea, and he’d control the timing of the great unveiling meant to have you named as heir and, just coincidentally, make him a very rich man when you thanked him with a hundred million or so.”
“I really didn’t think about that. Poppy just told me he’d been looking for me, and he thought he knew of a way to introduce me into the family without anyone knowing. I could get to know Archie, my brothers and sister. Dear God, Grady! Those three are my brothers and sister!”
“Muriel isn’t so bad, honey,” Maisie said, snapping the lid on the last suitcase. “And she could use a friend.” She put a hand on her hip, looked at Annie. “You’ve got the eyes, you know. But everything else must have come from your mother. Lucky girl. The rest of them must have waded in the shallow end of the gene pool on both ends.”
“Maisie...” Grady said, motioning for her to leave the room. “Why don’t you go bring the car around. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“All right, but only because you promised I can still have three more weeks of vacation, paid for by D&S, in the locale of my choice. I’m thinking Paris, honey, so get ready to ante up.”
“She’s amazing,” Annie said, getting up from her perch on the side of the bed. “If we’re leaving, I have to go get my identification out of the toilet tank.”
“The toilet tank? It can’t be there. I looked.”
Annie had her hand on the doorknob leading to Grady’s bathroom. “I figured you would, which is why I moved it after the first day. Ever since then, it’s been in your toilet tank. I knew you’d never look there.”
Grady was still shaking his head as she came out of the bathroom with her driver’s license, and whatever else she’d hidden right under his nose. Okay, not his nose. He wouldn’t think about that.
“You wouldn’t want a job with D&S, would you?” he asked her as he picked up suitcases, stuffing one under his arm and taking one in each hand. “We could open a new division. Nutty Crimes Solved by the Book or Movie. Something catchy like that.”
“I’ll think about it,” Annie said, opening the door for him. Archie stood on the other side of it, Sandborn behind him. “Go away,” Annie said quietly.
“We came to say we’re sorry,” Archie told her, his demeanor so humble Grady barely recognized the man, although the dentures and the plaid bow tie were dead giveaways. “Both of us.”
“I don’t care.”
“Annie,” Grady said warningly. “It’s been a long day. Don’t say anything you’ll regret.”
“We’ve talked about it, Archie and me,” Sandborn said, stepping forward. “We know we made mistakes. We know we’re not nice people.”
“Hah! You sure nailed that one, Ace.”
“Annie, stop.”
“Annie don’t. Annie stop,” she said, whirling to glare at Grady, and then looking at her father, her grandfather, once more.
“Annie be good. Annie don’t tell. Are you three all laboring under some misconception that I’m a saint, here? Or maybe that I’m just too dumb to know when I’m well-off? What do you want me to do, Archie? Give you a great big kiss and let you call me Daddy’s little girl? In your dreams, buster! I don’t like you. You’re mean, and horrid, and you ruined your other children, and I thank God you didn’t get the chance to ruin me.”
“She’s got a point, Archie,” Grady said, wondering how long Annie would let the two men block the door, so that she couldn’t leave. Probably just long enough to remember she had a small suitcase in her hand, at which point Archie might need Sandborn to bandage up his bony knees.
“And you,” Annie said, pointing at Sandborn. “You used me. I wish you’d never found me.”
“I think you may have said something like that before,” Grady pointed out. “Come on, if you’re repeating yourself, it’s probably time to go.”
“Well?” Annie said after a moment. “Are you two going to move, or what?”
“We want another chance.”
“What? I don’t think I heard that right.”
“Don’t push, girl,” Archie said, his thin cheeks reddening. “I said, we want another chance. We want you to stay, and talk to us, let us get to know you. Just tell us what you want us to do, and we’ll do it.” He pinched his lips together, swallowed with some difficulty. “We’ll do anything. Please.”
“Just for a few days,” Sandborn added. “We’ve already sent Dickens to tell the others that they can stay. A.W. and Junior and Muriel. You’d want that, wouldn’t you? To get to know your brothers and sister? Of course, Daisy is already gone, but that’s no loss.”
Archie reached out one thin, bony hand, touched it to Annie’s cheek. “Please, child. We want you to stay.”
“Do you really mean that?” Annie asked, feeling her resolve weaken, just a little. “No! I’m not going to let you two old men get to me. I’m not! You can’t make up for two lifetimes of mean with one quick ‘pretty please, I’m sorry, dear.’” She turned to Grady, her eyes wet with tears once more. “Grady, I’m not staying here,” she told him. “I absolutely refuse to stay here with these people. I won’t! I mean it! Grady? Grady, don’t just stand there. Help me out here. Say something.”
He looked at Archie and Sandborn. He looked at Annie. And then he smiled. “We’ll just keep your bags in this room, Slugger, with mine.”